WY-GOV: Ron Micheli makes it official

Republican Ron Micheli, former state representative and former director of the Wyoming Department of Agriculture, officially kicked off his campaign Tuesday and Wednesday with speeches in Lyman, Cheyenne, and Casper, Wyoming.

Micheli said his highest priority will be to help create an environment where it is easier to do business in Wyoming thereby providing the conditions for sustained job creation and economic growth.

My highest priority as your governor will be to maintain an environment where it is easy to do business in Wyoming so that we can provide the conditions that will encourage job creation and steady economic growth. Together, we will use state government to create an environment where entrepreneurs decide to take risks in doing business in Wyoming, where businesses choose to invest in their own success. We can do this by keeping taxes low, keeping spending low and freeing businesses from outdated or unnecessary regulations and by focusing on helping the private sector create competition.

And then we will get government out of the way and unleash the private sector.

Micheli also addressed challenges facing Wyoming as a result of lower revenues to state coffers.

I believe that times of challenges are also times of great opportunities. We have the opportunity to return to many of the principles of good government that our founding fathers recognized. We have the opportunity to remind ourselves that government cannot and should not try to solve all of the ills of society and our economy. We will demonstrate to the rest of the country that smaller, more efficient and properly restrained government is the best protector of our economy, society and our liberties.

During his speech, Mr. Micheli railed against the Obama Administration and Democratic leaders in Congress for their continued and sustained attack on state sovereignty and individual liberties.

Unfortunately, many of Wyoming’s challenges come from outside Wyoming. I believe that the greatest threat facing Wyoming today, and quite frankly the country we all love is coming from Washington DC. The Obama administration and the Congress have adopted policies that punish us for producing traditional energy resources that have and will continue to fuel the nation’s economy. The Obama administration continues to add to the many job-killing regulations and federal mandates that will further burden Wyoming’s energy sector.

President Obama, Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid have embarked on a path of unprecedented deficit spending that threatens the financial future of all of our citizens. With each passing month, we learn of a new federal program concocted by a liberal President and his accomplices in Congress that will add to our mounting national debt, stifle freedom and make it even harder for states to balance their budgets. Meanwhile, the federal government continues to create more power for itself and trample the rights granted to Wyoming in the Constitution.

We need a governor who will fight for the Constitution, who will join with other governors and fight the infringement of the rights of the states. We need a governor who understands the meaning of the 10th amendment and who will fight for it with his whole heart.

I will be that governor!

With all the challenges, Wyoming needs a governor with the experience, leadership and commitment to secure Wyoming’s legacy for future generations from the threats we face from our own federal government, to ensure that Wyoming has a strong and vibrant economy, and that Wyoming honors and protects our individual freedoms and liberties.

I will be that governor!

Also, Micheli reaffirmed his commitment to the sanctity of marriage and to protecting and fighting for unborn children.

We need a leader who will guard our families and our culture from those demean their importance or would redefine their very meaning. We need a leader who will protect traditional family values, understands the sanctity of marriage and who will protect the sanctity of life and has the record to prove it.

I am committed to doing that. I will be that governor.

Micheli concluded:

Today, we see great threats to freedoms. One of the greatest threats is the apathy of our nation’s citizens toward preserving our liberties. Public service is demeaned. Patriotism is not politically correct. We have lost the intense passion that our founding fathers held for the principles of the Constitution. I believe we are at a crossroads of our history. Thirty years from now I want to be able to look my children and my grandchildren in the eye and say, “we made a difference.”

I am asking you to join us today, in the spirit of our strongest traditions, to recommit to the values that made this country the greatest nation on the face of the earth. Please join with us as we build a Wyoming that is better than the one that we inherited.

. . .

But I do pledge to you today that the hour has come. My whole heart is in it. All that I have, and all that I am and all that I hope in this life, I am now ready to pledge to Wyoming. Together we can make a difference. We must do all that we can to preserve the noble heritage that has been left to us by our founding fathers. At the end of the day, I want to be able to look my children and grandchildren in the eye and say, we did it, we made a difference.